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That explains the price for Understone that I got yesterday. I thought it was more than 200. Although, for what it contains, the price should be permanently 200. I thought there would be more to it.

Traitor's Keep is a much better DLC. In Understone, you only have 1 or 2 new main quests and then 2 persistent quests which are just mini-games. In Traitor's Keep you have 8-10 main quests, a demon door, and a set of achievements.

I think I picked up Understone the last time it was on sale and it was so Underwhelming I didn't finish it. Coming from someone who loved the Fable II DLC. It's starting to look like III swore me off the series.

Having spent over ten years working on PlayStation-exclusive franchises like Sly Cooper and inFamous, Sucker Punch Productions is now becoming a Sony-owned developer. Sony announced the acquisition of the Bellevue, Washington-based studio this morning, formally adding it to the ranks of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios.

It wouldn't be a new entry in a popular series without retailer specific pre-order bonuses. As previously revealed, all pre-orders will receive the limited edition of Battlefield 3 and, thus, the "Back to Karkand" map pack DLC, though each retailer will also have some different additional bonuses.

the service's major appeal is in offering its subscribers a digital copy of the full retail release of upcoming versions of Madden, NHL, FIFA, Tiger Woods PGA Tour and NCAA Footballfor three days before they release. This digital copy expires at 6 a.m. U.S. Eastern time on the day of release, requiring a trip to the store to pick up a retail disc to continue your gaming.

Why until day of release? You know why.

Yes, it's suboptimal that you can't simply pay your $59.99 through Xbox Live or PlayStation Network to keep the title. But if that was an offering, then consider what kind of mainstream demand that would impose on both networks' infrastructure—which EA Sports would have to pay for—not to mention the threat of alienating major retail partners.

So basically EA is going to monitor this until they think they can screw physical retailers with a same-day release. You're paying to give them information in that regard.

Bottom line: It's a decent discount on premium DLC, a weekend with five new games before anyone else gets to play them, and the prestige of saying so.

The DLC Discount Doesn't Cover Previous Versions or Other Games

No Online Pass Discount

It's One Subscription, One Platform

I missing what this does special. Didn't they mention something about year-to-year continuity?

As you may have read in our fine preview of Diablo III, Blizzard's next chapter in the revered dungeon-crawling series will require a persistent connection to Battle.net, even if one wants to play solo. Yep, it's everybody's favorite form of DRM, back in action!

Executive producer Rob Pardo is not calling it DRM, however, instead telling PC Gamer that it's an anti-cheating measure: "One of the things that we felt was really important was that if you did play offline ... you’d start a character, you’d get him all the way to level 20 or level 30 or level 40 or what have you, and then at that point you might decide to want to venture onto Battle.net. But you’d have to start a character from scratch, because there’d be no way for us to guarantee no cheats were involved, if we let you play on the client and then take that character online."

Allowing players to have online and offline characters... so difficult!

"The whole idea is that we're paying for servers," said executive producer Patrick Bach, "and if you create a new account there is a big process on how that is being handled in the backend. We would rather have you buy a new game than a used game because buying a used game is only a cost to us; we don't get a single dime from a used game, but we still need to create server space and everything for you."

Poor EA, how have you been affording all the server space used gamers have been requiring all these years!

You know you're being retarded when Activision looks reasonable, if not downright gamer friendly.

Eurogamer was given information from an unnamed source that the game was in development, with a major announcement coming soon. Pitchford called stories about Borderlands 2 "shoddy journalism" on his Twitter account. Here's the problem: the story was 100 percent true.

This sorry episode is indicative of a larger problem with our business: those that write about games are supposed to be part of a marketing program, and any attempt at breaking a story that isn't handed to an outlet is met with outright hostility. If you get a scoop about a game before an exclusive reveal at another publication, you're going to be called out for "shoddy journalism." Having a story before you're allowed to have it makes you a target.

We experienced this firsthand when we broke the news of Rock Band 3's keytar peripheral. After we ran the story we were contacted by the PR company handling the Harmonix account, and threatened with all sorts of nastiness if the story wasn't removed.

We held firm, because we knew the story was accurate, but what I was unprepared for was the anger from other writers who had signed nondisclosure agreements that prevented them from writing about the peripheral until the NDA expired. From their point of view I hadn't played fair, and in many cases outlets which had signed the NDA didn't pick up our story for fear of angering Harmonix. We had stepped out of the marketing plan for the game by running a scoop we had dug up ourselves, and boy, did we ever hear about it.

Obviously a great deal of my ire deserves to go to the journalists as well, but the entire thing is a sham. I'm sure I've said this before, but gamers get labeled as feeling entitled, yet the people who make games cry foul if their marketing timeline is disturbed or reviews become too honest.

It doesn't help that I despise this kind of thinly veiled subterfuge; Did anyone doubt Borderlands 2 was under development? An E3 announcement would have felt late considering its original release date. People were excited about this game. What is the harm in their knowing it's even in the works?

Perhaps I'm being naive. I still value genuine unscheduled excitement and enthusiasm more highly than tightly scheduled PR.

Honestly, I think the PR is overrated (Aside from actual commercials and ads nearing release).

Will knowing Black Ops 2 is development stop anyone from buying MW3? Hell no. Will knowing Borderlands 2 is in development stop someone from buying Borderlands or its DLC? Probably not (and that type of person is probably buying used anyway).

What happened when the details of MW3 leaked? Mass coverage, outburst of discussion from the community. Is this bad? Could this kind of PR be matched by their marketing department and its scheduling?

Edit: Jesus, their adherence to the notion of such a tightly controlled, meticulously crafted message makes me think of ****ing Star Wars of all things. "The more you tighten your grip, the more [gamers] will slip through your fingers."

This includes all the games of this bundle (Crayon Physics, Cogs, VVVVVV, Hammerfight, And Yet It Moves, and now Steel Storm), all the games of the previous bundle (Braid, Machinarium, Cortex Command, Osmos, Revenge of the Titans), and Minecraft is free to play for bundle buyers until Aug 14th.

Jason Bateman and Will Arnett, who played brothers Michael and Gob Bluth on the funny-as-hell TV show, run a company called DumbDumb productions, and will "create original video programming" that will only be available to members of the Call of Duty service.

One verified source working at Dr D, George Miller's Animation Studio, claimed that multiple members of Team Bondi, including Brendan McNamara himself, were seen getting a tour of the Dr D offices.

...

According to the source this bothered some Dr D workers, many of which were ex-Team Bondi employees.

"The word is going round that Team Bondi is being folded into KMM studios, Team Bondi is pretty much doomed after the scandal and can't find any new supporters, so by doing this they can hide their name."

Well, things are looking a little more dire, with EA now releasing a list of retailers from which you'll be able to buy Battlefield 3. Not pre-order, buy. And Steam is not listed.

This of course all boils down to a little spat EA and Valve are having at the moment over who as the right to do whatever.

I probably said this before, but you have to be extra retarded to ice-out the preferred method of purchase for the largest purchase base (compared to BF2). If this was Activision and MW3, I'd see it as very little to lose, as PC people hate them already.

If you're wondering why some of their team is "stuck" on the Wii port, well, they've got a ton of experience on the platform, having handled the Nintendo home console versions of World at War, Modern Warfare and Black Ops, as well as having turned out 2008's Spider-Man: Web of Shadows on the Wii.

"I've thought for a long time that games are too expensive," he said in the latest issue of PSM3. "I don't put us in that category of course -- for what we give you, for sixty bucks or however many 'quid' it is.

"That's a lot of money for entertainment, so I think the good news is that in certain markets -- PC, iPhone, mobile -- we can see prices coming down. But I do think industry-wide we would benefit from more games out at $19 or $29. I would try more games. Because I'm not going to try a game for $60. It's a tough decision. That's why people read reviews and previews, because it's not only a money decision, it's a time-investment decision. It's not like going to a movie."

There's a certain hypocrisy here, as his studio offers a full $60 game with no demo, but it's not completely unjustified, as I believe it's a fairly deep game set in an open world. Right message (well the price point is debatable), but wrong messenger.

One of the sadder stories to come out of this week's London riots is that of Malaysian student Ashraf Haziq, who bleeding profusely from a broken jaw is helped to his feet by passers-by...before summarily having his PSP stolen right out of his backpack.

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe's marketing director Alan Duncan has pledged to replace Haziq's PSP, and throw in a few games for good measure.

The only negative thing going on at this moment is the Scrolls trademark lawsuit nonsense, and I think I came up with the perfect solution:

Remember that scene in Game of Thrones where Tyrion chose a trial by battle in the Aerie? Well, let’s do that instead!
I challenge Bethesda to a game of Quake 3. Three of our best warriors against three of your best warriors. We select one level, your select the other, we randomize the order. 20 minute matches, highest total frag count per team across both levels wins.

If we win, you drop the lawsuit.

If you win, we will change the name of Scrolls to something you’re fine with.

For those of you not following along at home, Bethesda sued Notch because his game Scrolls infringes on their Elder Scrolls trademark, allegedly.

Disappointed that EA's Battlefield 3 won't be sold on Steam? So, it turns out, is Valve's Gabe Newell. He takes a surprisingly responsible stance on the "complicated" issue of EA's absence from his digital distribution service, telling Develop that "we have to show EA it's a smart decision to have EA games on Steam, and we're going to try to show them that."

Newell says there isn't just one thing Valve can to do convince EA that Steam is a good place to sell its games -- instead, it has to "prove we are creating value on an ongoing basis, whether it's to EA or Ubisoft or whoever." Steam has a whole host of good reasons for EA to use it, says Newell, including "happier customers, a higher quality service, and [EA] will make more money if they have their titles on Steam. It's our duty to demonstrate that to them. We don't have a natural right to publish their games."

His fairly neutral conciliatory response just makes EA look like even bigger dicks for all the spinning and PR speak they've been doing for the past couple months.

"We're already seeing the wall starting to crumble a bit," he said. "Demon's Souls, even though on one level it's a single-player game, as you're walking through the world you're seeing the ghosts of everybody who died in that world via the internet. You can leave messages for them. They can leave messages for you. There's actually a boss you fight in that game which is controlled by another player.

"We're talking five, 10 years out. I believe three years from now, if you aren't doing that, you are being criticised in your reviews for your lack of innovation."

As a side note, the way Demon's Souls incorporates "multiplayer" is very, very cool.

Some people actually try to trick you with notes. They might leave one that says, "Beware: ambush from the left through the door," when the ambush actually comes from the right. Frustrating at times when considering the game's difficulty, but still pretty cool.

Though he couldn't speak to the divide in terms of paid Xbox Live members versus unpaid (last we heard, there were over 12 million Gold subscribers), he did note that Microsoft is earning "more revenue from the transaction space than the subscription space." That means Microsoft's banking more from digital content purchases (XBLA games, Zune Marketplace, etc.) than from folks paying for the service.

That first (and free) downloadable content pack for Valve's Portal 2—originally announced in April for a summertime release—will be released mid-September, says the company. That's "still technically summer," Valve's Doug Lombardi assured Kotaku at Gamescom.

Thus is the single-player DLC problem. It's Portal, it's free, and it's been so damn long I don't even care anymore.

In response to troubling reports that Japanese tech retailers had begun reducing the amount of shelf space they're allotting for the Xbox 360, Microsoft Europe's Chris Lewis confirmed the company has no intention of giving up on the market. "No, of course we're not pulling out," Lewis explained in a recent interview with Eurogamer.

Pretty weak PR. As we can see from the NPD, sales this generation are winding down for the most part. It's not surprising if a console that barely had traction in Japan is now essentially dead.

EA CEO John Riccitiello, head of the company making this fall's premiere Call of Duty competitor, Battlefield 3, recently said he hopes that he hopes Call of Duty would "rot from the core."

I don't know how I didn't catch this, but that's some pretty unprofessional words. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised such words spring from the mind of Project $10. EA, holding on to my most-hated company status since last year with authority.

"This isn't politics," Hirshberg said, as he wrapped up an awards ceremony keynote at the Gamescom event in Cologne. "In order for one to win, the other doesn't have to lose. This is an entertainment industry, it's an innovation industry, and at best, it's an art form... We shouldn't be tearing each other apart, fighting for a larger slice of the pie. We should all be focused on trying to grow a bigger pie. If we as an industry act like there are a finite number of games in the world, then there will be."

Technically it's right, but it's mostly BS. His company's strategy is try to devour the pie as fast as possible in order to prevent other companies from having much.

Cross-game voice chat is not possible on the PlayStation 3 because of memory restrictions, Sony has revealed.

lulz?

I was reading the GAF thread on this and it has some surprisingly diverse speculation. It's worth noting that Sony has reduced the RAM footprint of the OS significantly since release, and that it didn't ear-mark some for cross-game chat has some wondering. Possibilities of possible patent infringements or trying to quickly get to 360 graphical parity (and superiority).

Then there's the element of, "How long did these ****ers know this and not tell us?"

It's pretty simple, and I think we've said it pretty consistently over the last few weeks. If we're allowed to deal with our consumers directly, being able to transact directly with our consumers, fix issues directly with consumers, then we'll be happy to sit down with our good friends at Valve and resolve some of those differences. But if their terms and conditions and policies don't change, then we'll focus on the other hundred download retailers we see in the marketplace and our own platform of course, Origin. It's important for us to have a direct conversation with our consumers, particularly on the PC platform, which is an open platform and should be kept that way.

Several people have noted EA has auto-updaters on other Steam games, and there are games that allows DLC purchases that bypass steam. So, more spinning/lies.

The closer is the real gem though: " the PC platform, which is an open platform and should be kept that way." Yeah, forcing retail copies of BF3 to install Origin is very "open".

The game was scheduled to be released alongside its console counterpart, but it was delayed at the last moment, with Ubisoft promising that it would not require an Internet connection to play after an initial activation. The game was finally released and... guess what? Ubisoft lied. The original forum post has been edited with the new information, the company is stone-walling fans and the press who ask for comment, and no one is happy. Oh, and the port is absolutely terrible.

In March, the game retailer bought Spawn Labs, which offered its own console game streaming box, the Spawn HD-720, as early as 2009. This new service would be able to stream 360 and PS3 games to smart devices and dedicated hardware.

GC: So those 10 years, they won’t be the Xbox 360 alone? The Xbox 720, or whatever it’s called, will presumably be leaking into some of those 10 years?

CL: Could possibly be the case. I’m not going to announce specifically or talk about timing. But you could imagine there could be overlap, it depends. We’re not being specific about the next generation at this stage. We’re very fixated on what we’re doing right now and the success we’re enjoying.

No shit, Sherlock. No one believed the PS3 would be stand-alonge for 10 years, either, did they?

I was reading the GAF thread on this and it has some surprisingly diverse speculation. It's worth noting that Sony has reduced the RAM footprint of the OS significantly since release, and that it didn't ear-mark some for cross-game chat has some wondering. Possibilities of possible patent infringements or trying to quickly get to 360 graphical parity (and superiority).

It has less RAM than my phone. Actually, it has the same amount of RAM as my iMac that came out more than two years prior. That might be lulz.

I think the problem is that the PS3 has an architecture where the CPU can only read from GPU memory at a very very low bandwidth. The X360, on the other hand, has a shared memory architecture. This means if you run out of memory on the 360, you can bump some textures. If you run out of memory on the PS3, you...crash, probably.

The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.

It has less RAM than my phone. Actually, it has the same amount of RAM as my iMac that came out more than two years prior. That might be lulz.

I think the problem is that the PS3 has an architecture where the CPU can only read from GPU memory at a very very low bandwidth. The X360, on the other hand, has a shared memory architecture. This means if you run out of memory on the 360, you can bump some textures. If you run out of memory on the PS3, you...crash, probably.

It can read from the GPU at 22.4Gb/s, and can pull 224MB from the system ram if it needs to. True the XBox can spike if it uses 10MB eDRAM, but the actual performance numbers tend to be about equal. The architecture overall I'd think is be more of the hurdle, as it doesn't follow a conventional programming diagram. Which is why ports tend to be so crappy, unless you program to work efficiently the way it is setup.

It has less RAM than my phone. Actually, it has the same amount of RAM as my iMac that came out more than two years prior. That might be lulz.

I think the problem is that the PS3 has an architecture where the CPU can only read from GPU memory at a very very low bandwidth. The X360, on the other hand, has a shared memory architecture. This means if you run out of memory on the 360, you can bump some textures. If you run out of memory on the PS3, you...crash, probably.

I don't believe it's the same type of RAM, and it's worth noting you phone was likely subsidized and much younger.

Originally Posted by Brien

I'm all for new stuff, but I find it hilarious that they're changing the UI of the dashboard every other year.

I forgot to note, this likely means its the second time they're extincting a type of theme they sold you. Wonder what they'll call the new "premium" themes.

Originally Posted by exca1ibur

It can read from the GPU at 22.4Gb/s, and can pull 224MB from the system ram if it needs to. True the XBox can spike if it uses 10MB eDRAM, but the actual performance numbers tend to be about equal. The architecture overall I'd think is be more of the hurdle, as it doesn't follow a conventional programming diagram. Which is why ports tend to be so crappy, unless you program to work efficiently the way it is setup.

Yeah, both have 512 MB of RAM, though Sony decided to split it into two partitions of 256, one for GPU and one for the CPU, I believe. And yes, this is why some developers aren't fond of programming on the PS3.

It can read from the GPU at 22.4Gb/s, and can pull 224MB from the system ram if it needs to. True the XBox can spike if it uses 10MB eDRAM, but the actual performance numbers tend to be about equal. The architecture overall I'd think is be more of the hurdle, as it doesn't follow a conventional programming diagram. Which is why ports tend to be so crappy, unless you program to work efficiently the way it is setup.

You misunderstand me. The GPU can read from its own memory (GDDR) at high speed, and the CPU can read from its own memory (XDR) at high speed. The GPU can also read from the CPU memory at high speed, but the CPU cannot read from the GPU memory at more than a stupidly low number, because that wasn't something they envisioned as being important. Also note that these connections are one-directional, so the CPU can WRITE to the GPU memory at high speed.

I don't believe it's the same type of RAM, and it's worth noting you phone was likely subsidized and much younger.

The PS3 indeed uses a different type of RAM (XDR is a RAMBUS design trades off high bandwidth for its time for a stupidly low memory ceiling) and yes it is much older, but still - the PS3 launched and was beaten in raw processing power by the Geforce 8800 GTX that launched at about the same time. That was your 10 year system Sony?

The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.